Tiffany Huet Class of 2008 Justifying Violence: A ... - Stetson University

of eleven large U.S passenger airplanes over the Pacific Ocean in one momentous day in
1995.” 79 He has written two declarations of jihad (1996 and 1998) instructing all Muslims to
consider it their “individual duty” to attack the United States and its allies in any way possible,
whether the attack be on military personnel or civilians. 80 The Qu’ran has traditionally been
interpreted by ulama, or “learned authorities,” in order to provide agreements on the Shari’a or
“the path that leads to happiness.” 81 The Shari’a is crucial to Islamic tradition and doctrine
because it refers to the ideal way to live in order to achieve true earthly and heavenly
fulfillment. 82 However, in the last 150 years, this very exclusive argument has become an
increasingly public debate, one that bin Laden and other fundamentalist leaders have joined. 83
The two sides that have formed are these: fundamentalists and pluralists. Fundamentalists
(Osama bin Laden and his followers) believe that true justice is formed under an Islamic state
that is devoted, “(a) to the establishment of Islam as the state religion, and (b) to the
implementation of divine law, in the sense that policies are clearly derived from textual
precedents.” On the contrary, pluralists believe that a just political system is one whose policies
are simply “consistent with Islamic values,” and who is willing to look beyond the traditional
understandings of the Qur’an. 84
It is important that we compare and contrast bin Laden’s justification for violence with
Bonhoeffer’s because of Bonhoeffer’s insistence that his ethic of deputyship was “a possibility
79
Juergensmeyer, 61, 70.
80
Kelsay, 29: Kelsay inserts an excerpt of bin Laden’s “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders” in
his article in Christian Century.
81
Kelsay, John. “Democratic Virtue, Comparative Ethics, and Contemporary Islam.” Journal of
Religious Ethics 33 no 4 (Dec. 2005): 699; Kelsay, “Bin Laden’s Reasons,” 27.
82
Kelsay, John. “Islam and the Problem of Violence,” in War or Words?: Interreligious
Dialogue as an Instrument of Peace, ed. Donald W. Musser and D. Dixon Sutherland
(Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2005), 39.
83
Kelsay: “Democratic Virtue, Comparative Ethics, and Contemporary Islam,” 699.
84
Kelsay: “Democratic Virtue, Comparative Ethics, and Contemporary Islam,” 699.
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